• So the cupboard door is open and the skeletons are marching out at the Leveson inquiry. Less a case of one bad apple at the News of the World; more a rotting orchard: Glenn Mulcaire, the phone hackers' phone hacker, commissioned by many, rewarded with £92,000 every year. But as James Murdoch considers the train wreck that is the hacking fiasco, he sees that this isn't the only problem in his intray. Last week British drug firm GlaxoSmithKline reached an agreement to pay $3bn – that's £1.9bn – to settle an array of illegal acts uncovered by US federal investigators. The charges include fraudulent pricing of drugs to cheat Medicaid, the US healthcare scheme for the poor; entertaining doctors and paying them "advisory fees" to persuade them to prescribe drugs; and trying to get drugs prescribed for conditions not approved by regulators, like selling antidepressants as slimming aids. Guess who has a seat on the board of GlaxoSmithKline? Why James. He joined the firm in February 2009. GlaxoSmithKline chairman Sir Christopher Gent welcomed James, saying his "experience of global business, marketing and communications will bring a unique and alternative perspective". He would also, it was said, be an "excellent addition" to the board's corporate responsibility committee, "an area where he has shown particular leadership at BSkyB and News Corporation". Particular leadership indeed.

• And hard times in the Chipping Norton lair of Rebekah Brooks, the troubled former CEO of Rupert Murdoch's News International. Though she got a £1.7m payoff, an office and a car from Rupert, one worries about the future and one always wants more. So out goes the old man again to earn a crust. A small announcement in the Oxford Times this weekend said that Charlie Brooks is resuming his trainer's licence after 13 years away from racing, and is opening a small yard at Castle Barn Farm in Sarsden, near "Chippy", the centre of the Cameron-Clarkson-Murdoch country axis. He could take on sacked News of the World types – those who fancy a change of tack. Rebekah did promise to find them something.

• Marvellous to note the upward trajectory of Roger Bright, chief executive of the Crown Estate – which manages the monarchy's property. As the man in charge of £7bn of assets, he charts the fortunes of some of the capital's swankiest streets. No one would have thought this possible back in 1984, when in his other life at the Department of the Environment he was part of the hand-picked team that invented the poll tax. To quote from the authority on these things, the book Failure in British Government: The Politics of the Poll Tax, those selected were "in the words of one close to the review, 'the brightest selection of people ever gathered to consider local government reform', though an outsider who had contact with them describes them as 'highly educated barrow boys'". The policy did for Baroness Thatcher, and thank God for that. But its architects fared rather well.

• No word yet on whether Prince Philip was able to insult anyone of note during last week's royal visit to the British Library. But there is fresh news of the old boy taking a swipe, as he does, at an official he met for a charity discussion. Mark Ellen tells the story in the latest edition of the Word magazine. "Old pal Anton Corbijn is in the Dover Street Arts Club for a charity meeting with Prince Philip but he hasn't fully grasped the meaning of the expression 'lounge suit'. He's gone for jeans and a T-shirt. 'And what do you do?' the Duke of Ed inquires (he really does). 'I'm a film director and photographer,' says the flying Dutchman. 'Well, you ought to be able to afford a suit then,' says Phil, 'unless, of course, you're not a very successful film director …' " It's the bile that makes him the man he is.

• Finally, an announcement. Chatham House has removed the paper Revising Russia's Energy Strategy from its website. "The paper has been withdrawn because it contained direct passages from other sources without the necessary citation or attribution," says the respected body a tad loftily. But then, plagiarism is such an ugly word, don't you think?